Nazi Postal System
![“[Your sister] asks you to write her more often and [to tell her] if you received a letter from your parents.”](images/275/ak170.jpg)
“[Your sister] asks you to write her more often and
[to tell her] if you received a letter from your parents.”
Mail was permitted in some labor camps at the discretion of the
director to sustain the illusion of normalcy and kindness to
workers’ families
and to the workers themselves, who were valuable to Schmelt
and to the German businesses that used them.
There were two postal channels: the Nazi postal system, the Deutsche
Reichspost, and the much slower community mailbag, operated
by the Jewish Council.
Raizel, encouraging her sister to use the Reichspost, wrote
that mail arrived in two
days via the Nazi system and 10–12 days through the Jewish
Council. However, after Jews were moved into the ghetto, the
Jewish community mailbag was used more frequently. The mail
system was
efficient. For example, one postcard was delivered to Sala
even though it had not been addressed to her.
All mail was subject to censorship. Although a few early letters
were written in Polish, by the end of 1940 letters had to be written
in German. The stamp “Z,” for zensiert, meant that
a censor had reviewed the letter. It was then punched and stored
in a large notebook. Some camps required that old mail be exchanged
for new mail. Beginning in 1941, Jews were required to insert the
middle name “Sara” for women or “Israel” for
men in all addresses.
![“Probably the best is to write by [German] mail and after 2 days one receives the mail, while it takes 10-12 days through the [Jewish] community.”](images/275/ak258.jpg)
“Probably the best is to write by [German]
mail
and after 2 days one receives the mail, while it
takes 10-12
days through the [Jewish] community.”Some of Sala’s letters bore stamps from the General Gouvernement,
the large Polish territory that was occupied but not annexed to
the Reich. These postcards, often featuring regional architecture,
were regular issue after August 1940. The value of each card was
12 Polish grozy, half the value of a German pfennig. Within the
Reich, postcards cost 6 pfennigs. Hindenburg Medallion stamps were
most common there until 1941, when Adolf Hitler’s profile
began to appear on stamps.
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